SPJ Beat Diversity in Journalism|Whitney Shanahan

Diversity in journalism is an important aspect of providing news to the entire nation, instead of just a specific population, and in a way that keeps them informed of all events of the world and community. By having diversity in what is reported, it is able to reach more individuals in more ways. If the only topics reported were sports related, then those people who do not enjoy sports would not be interested in the news and all people would not feel informed about the world events going on around them. Additionally, to have diversity in journalists and reporters within each newspaper will bring more perspectives to that newspaper, giving it more diversity. Each reporter will come from a different background with different life experiences, giving them varying opinions and perspectives. This will allow each reporter to have a different take on world events, different tastes in what they enjoy writing and reporting on, and different opinions on what is important and relevant to report to the public.

Living in Florida, I feel my local news stations have great diversity. The United States has been described as the melting pot nation where many immigrants come to make a new life for themselves and their families, giving the US an incredible amount of diversity. In my opinion, Florida is one of the biggest melting pot states within this nation. There are so many immigrants from Mexico and Cuba, residents from Puerto Rico, people from all other states who come down to retire or escape the cold, and so on. This is one aspect that allows my local news stations to have great diversity in their employees and reporters, which allows for such a wide variety in story style and structure, story topics, and story perspective. One local news station called Spectrum Bay News 9 has a list of their employees on their website, which shows reporters of various races and of both genders. Their employees are even diversified among ages, from young adult to middle age to older adult, and specialize in different areas from sports to breaking news to weather reporters to anchors.

Though many reporters try their best to keep bias out of their reports, it is almost impossible to be completely unbiased about many topics, especially large controversial topics, so to have diversity among reporters and perspectives gives a more balanced outlook for the public to read. Not only does this provide information to the public about important issues, but it can also provide the public with various perspectives on those issues. It can also lead to fully informed people in the community because they will be informed on the facts of various issues and be exposed to various perspectives surrounding those issues. This diversity in journalism can lead to more informed readers among a larger target audience.